Let's Move Blog

Posted by Robin Schepper, Executive Director of Let’s Move! on March 17, 2011

Cross-posted from the White House blog
Yesterday afternoon, First Lady Michelle Obama replanted the White House garden on the South Lawn with elementary students from local DC schools. Now in its third year, the garden includes spinach, peas, lettuce, broccoli, blueberries, raspberries and other vegetables and herbs.

Posted by Judy Baker, Regional Director for Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri on March 17, 2011

At the request of Mayor Carson Ross, the Blue Springs, Missouri City Council unanimously passed a resolution of commitment on March 7 supporting the Let’s Move! initiative. Blue Springs will tackle preventing childhood obesity from multiple angles, focusing on involvement of diverse segments in the community, collaboration, and measurable results. Many community partners, such as the school district, local hospital, YMCA, and the fire department have signed letters of commitment to the initiative.

Posted by Dennis Michael, Mayor of Rancho Cucamonga, CA on March 15, 2011

Our City of Rancho Cucamonga, California is located in the largest county in the contiguous United States and the fourth most obese. The county has the highest death rate from heart disease and the ninth highest death rate from diabetes. The county, moreover, has the state’s worst access to healthy food with six times as many unhealthy food retail outlets as healthy ones. Two out of every three residents are considered obese or overweight and three out of every four school children do not meet fitness standards.

Posted by Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey on March 15, 2011

On February 16th, President Obama announced the release of the America’s Great Outdoors Report. The report lays out a conservation and recreation agenda for the 21st century, which was created with and for the American people. As a result of 21 youth listening sessions, we heard loud and clear that access is one of the biggest barriers in providing urban youth the opportunity to recreate and have fun in the outdoors.

Last month USDA facilitated a school garden design session and since that time, landscape architects Matt Arnn and Bob Snieckus have been working hard to incorporate parent, teacher and student ideas into an ideal plan that would transform the large expanse of asphalt at Powell Elementary School in Washington, DC into a People’s Garden.

We know that to win the future, we have to ensure that our kids have access to nutritious meals and healthy lifestyles.
Last September, First Lady Michelle Obama launched the Recipes for Healthy Kids competition to bring together chefs, school nutrition professionals, students and parents who work in teams to develop nutritious, delicious, kid-approved recipes for use in schools.

Posted by James Arena-DeRosa, Regional Administrator for USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service on March 4, 2011

After a cold and snowy month of school closings, the sun shone on February 10, just in time to present eight elementary schools in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, with Bronze awards in the HealthierUS School Challenge.

In the President’s recent State of Union Address, he spoke candidly about winning the future. I can’t think of a better way to achieve that than by ensuring our Nation’s children are provided a healthy school environment to learn, grow and thrive.

Posted by Robin Schepper, Executive Director of Let’s Move! on March 1, 2011

Let’s Move! online is expanding! Recently, we created a twitter account that will allow followers to get updates about the First Lady’s initiative to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation. Follow us at www.twitter.com/letsmove. Following us on twitter will let you get direct links to posts on this blog when they go up and resources for being active on these issues in your family and community.